
HF Contesting - Good Practices, Interpretations and Suggestions Contents: 1) Pre-Contest 2) Post-Contest 3) Operations During the Contest 4) Interacting with other contesters 5) Interacting with non-contesters 6) Spotting and Use of Spots 7) Soliciting QSOs - Single-band entries This “white paper” is a set of discussions about common situations encountered in HF contesting. The questions and responses here are not intended to apply to VHF+ contesting because there are many differences in the way HF and VHF+ contests are conducted. Before looking to this “white paper”, however, many questions can be answered by a careful reading of the contest rules. Start there or ask the contest administrator - they will be glad to tell you how you should operate in their contest. General and specific rules for all ARRL contests can be found at http://www.arrl.org/contests. The CQ Contest Handbook and CQ WW CD-ROM also contain an annotated set of CQ rules. The suggestions made here are only suggestions about best practices, as compiled by the seasoned operators who make up the ARRL Contest Advisory Committee. They are not mandatory and the individual contest operator is free to accept or reject their wisdom. Generally, rejecting these suggestions will not result in a penalty by a contest sponsor. In all cases, contest rules take precedence over the suggestions - read the rules. The goal is to provide guidance and advice, especially for new contesters, that helps define where the "good arrow" points, to encourage contest operation that advances the spirit and integrity of the sport. Please address your comments and suggestions about this “white paper” to the ARRL Contest Advisory Committee member from your Division. Thanks and 73 The ARRL Contest Advisory Committee 1) Pre-Contest a) Schedules Question 1: What is a pre-contest schedule? Question 2: Can I plan a schedule with my friend on Bouvet to meet me at 7005 during the contest? Question 3: I'm going to P5 for the contest - can I let everybody know when I'm going to be operating? Question 4: I heard two stations make arrangements during the contest to meet on 14225 at 1330Z - can they do that? Definition - A pre-contest schedule consists of information that is exchanged or published before the contest to allow QSOs to be planned at a specific time and frequency. Let’s start with the last question - during any contest, it is perfectly acceptable to say, “I'll meet you on frequency X at time Y" as long as it is done via the radio and according to the contest rules. This form of scheduling is OK because it requires the same skills, antennas and equipment used in the rest of the contest. Going “outside” the contest bands and modes to arrange or solicit QSOs during the contest is usually explicitly prohibited by the contest rules. Contest rules may also explicitly prohibit certain practices, such as the use of non-amateur means to solicit or arrange contacts. Prearranging contacts and advertising specific operating times and frequencies shown to be of questionable value, before the contest is discouraged. The reason these practices are discouraged is that they bypass the skills of knowing how to tune, judge propagation, and listen. In general, if by announcing your information, another contester can tune to a specific frequency at a specific time and work you, your information is too detailed. Mentioning frequencies on 160 meters is also somewhat of a special case due to unaligned frequency allocations and the need to avoid BC and commercial interference. This is by no means a cut-and-dried issue and there are many aspects of strategy that fall into such gray areas. In these situations, ask yourself if by exchanging the information you give yourself an advantage over another operator in a way that doesn't depend on radio skills. If yes, then you probably shouldn't do it. Judging the potential advantage is up to you. Is any kind of scheduling OK? Sure - it’s a convention during DX contests to check 160 “on the hour,” for example. Making a pre-contest band plan to schedule your operating time is also a great idea. Having a list of sunrise and sunset times around the world can help you be sure not to miss a short opening on the low bands, as well. 2 b) Club and Team Support Situation 1: One of my club members is going to KP1 for the contest and we're planning on making a big effort to work him on all bands. Situation 2: Before the contest, we all agreed to start the contest on 40 meters to make sure we work each other. Are these OK? What kind of support is unreasonable? First, meeting on the air during a contest to arrange strategy, compare multipliers, or organize contacts places all participants in the Assisted category in ARRL and most other contests. Rooting for your club members and teammates during a contest is natural and enjoyable. Recognizing club member calls out of a big pileup is a lot of fun, too! By all means, get on the bands and work your buddies. Just don't stop with them! This sort of thing becomes undesirable when you ONLY work your friends or club members. Don't exclude contacts with other stations. The only time there’s a problem with supporting your friends and club members is when actions are taken by an organization or individual to influence the competitive environment to the exclusive advantage of a participating organization or individual. Having a strategy session before the contest is also a good idea - it makes the contest more enjoyable for everyone and helps new operators learn the ropes. Just don't stray over the line into making pre-contest schedules or ONLY working your associates. A good way to approach this type of operating is that the activity should benefit all of the stations operating on the band or mode. If your plan is advantageous to only one station or to one club or team, you've probably carried things too far. 2) Post-Contest a) Contact Confirmation Question 1: I'm not sure KX1ABC QSLed my information at the end of our contact. Is it OK for me to contact him and see if he logged me OK? Question 2: WX0ZZZ sent me an email after the contest asking if my QTH was really XX - what should I say? Definition: Post-contest contact confirmation consists of making inquiries prior to the log submission deadline to determine the correctness or presence of QSOs or QSO data in the log. The simple answer to both of these questions is that the contest is over at the time the rules say it's over. Any information in your log at the end of the contest is what should go to the contest sponsors. If your information is wrong, so be it - everyone makes mistakes. If someone asks you to confirm a QSO or information in the exchange, you should politely decline. After the log submission deadline, you can discuss anything you want, of course. 3 If you’re not sure about that QSO with KX1ABC, the time to make sure is during the contest. For example, if you’re not sure your call was copied correctly, here’s how to get it right: KX1ABC: CQ Test W1AW and pileup: W1PK2NAWKD71X KX1ABC: W1 599 VT W1AW: W1AW (repeat your call until KX1ABC responds correctly) KX1ABC: W1AW 59 VT W1AW: KX1ABC Roger 59 CT KX1ABC: Roger CQ Test If you were calling CQ and the other station didn’t QSL before tuning away, the safest thing for you to do is just not log the QSO. They are obliged to acknowledge receiving your information. Follow-up question: If I send in the log with a bad call or exchange, won't the other guy be unfairly penalized? In all but for a very few contests, the other station will NOT be penalized for your mistakes in copying their call or exchange. An exception would be if you bust the other station's call so badly that it can't be established you made a QSO. This happens from time to time and there's nothing to be done about it except to work on your accuracy. Follow-up question: I don't want to be penalized. Should I remove the QSO from my log? Removing the QSO from your log virtually guarantees that the other station will unfairly receive a “Not In Log (NIL)” penalty because the log checkers will find no QSO in your log with the other station. To be fair, you should leave all completed QSOs in your log and accept whatever penalties your mistakes might incur. b) Log Manipulation Definition - Editing the log after the contest is over. Question 1: I'm pretty sure I made some typos during the contest - can I correct them? Question 2: I see that I worked W1AW on four bands, but logged WA1W on the fifth with the same exchange. I should correct the call, right? Question 3: My friend uses software to go through his log looking for bad calls and stuff. Is that OK? It's possible to "sanitize" a log after the contest, but as with confirming contacts, the correct answer is that the contest is over at the time the rules say it's over. Examples of post-contest log manipulation include editing times, correcting band changes, checking calls against the call book, checking against packet spots, looking through logs from 4 other contesters, confirming calls and exchanges with your buddies, reading DX and contesting reflectors for news about rare calls, and even posting questions like, "did anyone get QSL info for that VQØ?" There are wide ranging opinions about the acceptability of editing your log after the contest.
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